Get behind the scenes of Illinois Gymnastics with Illini Ink - the weekly women's gymnastics journal. In this year's 12th edition, senior Allison Buckley discusses finals and the upcoming intrasquad competition along with wishing everyone a happy holiday season.

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Hey Illini Fans-

I hope everyone is getting used to the nice wintry weather and is ready for the Holiday season to arrive. I can't believe that Christmas is less than 2 weeks away with the New Year right around the corner. We hope you all have a wonderful Holiday season and look forward to you joining us in the New Year.

As you all know, we are in the midst of finishing up the semester. This week is FINALS week. Most of us had a pretty hectic week with exams, papers, and presentations. I can tell you it is great to have everything done! In light of this, the coaches have been really great in coming into the gym and leaving the workouts open. We have been able to come and go as we need to and work on whatever we feel is necessary for ourselves. With everyone finishing up now in the next few days I am sure we will all be back in the gym and gearing up for our big Intrasquad on Sunday.

This Sunday will be our first intrasquad competition with a judge. We had one intrasquad just before Thanksgiving with the coaches judging and giving us corrections. Now we have worked on those mistakes and we are ready to show our routines off to a judge. This is the first year that we will be doing our intrasquad prior to leaving for Winter Break so I am really excited to see where we are at and what we can come back and improve upon before our first meet in Kentucky January 8.

After intrasquad on Sunday, we will all be able to head home for a week to enjoy the holidays with our families. I know everyone is really excited to celebrate and spend some much needed time at home before we get the season underway. We can only hope that the weather is better this year and that everyone flying home can make it out and home safely!

Again I hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday season and we hope that you can keep up with us and cheer us on as we head to Kentucky! Thanks for reading : )